Women of color fare better in personal earnings where racial minority men struggle most, study finds

LAWRENCE — In the United States, racial minorities earn less than whites, and women earn less than men. But according to a new study, women of color may not be so financially hindered by their sex and race as might be assumed.

“If ethnoracial barriers are truly universal, then how can women of color be less disadvantaged?” asked ChangHwan Kim, a professor of sociology at the University of Kansas.

His new paper titled “Double disadvantage of Black, Hispanic, and Asian American women in earnings, revisited” attempts to answer that enigmatic question. It reveals the stronger the power of race in accounting for earnings inequality among men in a local labor market, the weaker double disadvantage married women of color experience. It appears in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility.

Co-written with Andrew Taeho Kim of the University of Tennessee (who earned his doctorate from KU in 2023), the paper interprets this seemingly counterintuitive paradox as an active response by women of color.

“They tend to increase their labor supply in areas where men of color face severe disadvantages,” ChangHwan Kim said. “Conversely, this suggests that opting out of the labor force is a choice more readily available to white women. Women of color work more consistently over their lifetimes and tend to work longer hours when employed. This heightened labor supply is especially pronounced when men of color encounter significant barriers in the labor market.”

The researchers’ results suggest an egalitarian shift in one domain can result in more disparity in the other domain.

“Progress in gender equality may boost incomes primarily for white women, thereby widening the family income gap between white families and ethnoracial minority families. Currently, the ethnoracial gap in family income appears smaller than it otherwise would because women of color tend to work more when men of color earn less. Thus, unless there is an improvement in the earnings of men of color, closing the gender income gap could inadvertently exacerbate the ethnoracial gap in family income,” he said.

To determine these results, the researchers used the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)–American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2015 to 2019. The sample is limited to native-born individuals between the ages of 25 and 54 with positive equivalized income. Specifically, they examined the association between women of color’s labor supply at the micro level and race-based earnings inequality among men at the macro level.

What most astonished Kim and Kim (who are unrelated) was the paradoxical association between women of color’s labor supply/earnings and men of color’s disadvantages across local labor markets.

“While we had anticipated this relationship, the strength of the association was still surprising,” ChangHwan Kim said.

Equally unexpected was the fact that Asian American women exhibited a similar pattern to Black and Hispanic women.

“Asian American women are often perceived as advantaged, with labor market outcomes closer to those of white women. However, our results show that their labor supply patterns align more closely with those of other ethnoracial minorities, especially when family contexts are taken into account,” he said.

ChangHwan Kim has taught at KU for 17 years, with his research focusing on the labor market, stratification and inequality. His previous papers include “COVID-19 and the Decline in Asian American Employment,” “Broken Promise of College? New Educational Sorting Mechanisms for Intergenerational Association in the 21st Century” and “Are They Still Worth It? The Long-Run Earnings Benefits of an Associate Degree, Vocational Diploma or Certificate, and Some College.”

Overall, is the labor market better or worse for women of color than it was a decade ago?

“Both women and men of color face less discrimination and encounter fewer barriers today than they did before the Civil Rights Movement,” he said. “However, it is equally clear that progress in closing ethnoracial gaps has slowed in recent years. In that sense, one could argue that the labor market conditions for women of color have changed little over the past decade.”